what it's like
by VickyVicarious
Summary: "A thief in love with an evil queen." Will Scarlet after 'Smash the Mirror'.


He leaves before Robin's new woman gets there. He's half out the door before Robin's finished hanging up, to be honest, and his once friend hardly spares him a distracted farewell. Will waves it off, uninterested, and wanders down Main Street with his shoulders slumped against the cold. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, neither of which are empty: the left sloshes, the right crumples, and Will stops dead in the road, hesitating.

He chooses the slosh.

There's not much left in the flask after his lunch and dinner earlier, but it's enough to at least burn a little in his throat, enough to ache against his tongue and he swallows again after it's all gone, licks his teeth.

He bares them in a scowl and keeps walking, letting the empty flask drop to the road behind him. His left hand balls up into a fist and he can feel his steps get stiffer, his jaw clenching shut, head dropping low and he's _pissed_, is what he is, and not the fun way anymore either.

It's _Storybrooke_, is the thing, this goddamn curse town built on mockeries of memories, and he's got his heart back in his chest where it belongs so he can't ignore it this time round. It's like everywhere he turns, there's another reminder, it's like –

A thief in love with an evil queen.

That's what it's like.

A blond in a pink dress and a rogue in leather out on a date.

That's what it's like.

A room he can't _go _to anymore, can't think of it because in that room's a wall riddled with little holes, a wall that once held a heart behind a picture and he can't step _foot_ in there, he's sleeping on park benches instead –

That's what this town is like.

It's built with the skeletons of love stories all ripped apart, it's loss and no find, is all it is, he can't even bloody find his bloody _map_, all he can find are echoes and alcohol, and he's trying to fight for her – _he is_, he's not ever gonna give up but –

His right pocket crumples again as he clutches his fists and this time he pulls his hand out slowly, slowly, _damned slow_ because he doesn't want to look at that little square of paper he stole back from the Sheriff's desk on his way out. Doesn't want to, really, but he's unfolding it anyway with shaking fingers, he's smoothing it out flat and staring down at it and thinking about all the ways it doesn't look like her, thinking, then again, all the ways it _does_ – he's driving himself _mad_ and it's the wrong realm for that.

"Easy, Will," he tells himself, continues the thought: _easy, it's not like last time. You're not heartless, she's not dead, you've been through __**worse**_ but it just makes him choke on a bitter laugh when he remembers the _after_. The wedding, and stepping through a portal together, and trying to fix things – succeeding, at fixing things, all manner of things. Her fingers walking down his chest, her lips on his and her hips in his hands. Her hair loose down her back and her voice saying, "I love you, Will Scarlet," not bothering to whisper, and his heart beating fast in his chest – that was supposed to be the only _after_, the happy one.

But instead Will Scarlet's standing on a street corner in the wrong world, staring down at a children's book illustration, and he's alone again, again he's lost without her and his hope, it's waning. It can't help but falter, can't help but twist in his gut because this town just won't let him _be_, it's got to mock him every minute and he's gotten no closer to finding what he needs, and Will's always been more sensible than this but if he could just get one, just _one_ sign that he'll succeed, that he'll see her again and get a second, third, whichever bloody number _ever after_ they're at by now, if there were just _one good thing_ –

Pops sound in the distance. Muffled explosions, and Will looks up to see _fireworks_ over the far edge of town, bursting pink and blue and bloody beautiful, Will's always loved fireworks, they always remind him of her, of the way it felt when he k—

(killed, he thinks, when he _killed her_, when she wished he could just _feel something _and died the next moment in her pretty white dress, in _his arms_, eyes wide open, poor Lizard who'd never done anything deserving of what he gave her)

There's bile in his throat, on his tongue, rancid and hot and he spits it out on the pavement, doesn't look back up as the fireworks finish their thunder. His mouth tastes wretched, sick and _lonely_ and Will spits again, wipes his eyes. The taste won't go away, of course it won't, he needs something to wash it down instead.

So he folds up his storybook illustration, smoothes his fingers along the edges as he tucks it into his pocket – then turns, with a grim smile, to face the bar.

Will Scarlet walks into _The Rabbit Hole_ (because that's how cruel this town has always been) and drinks until not a single memory is left pounding in his head, until nothing is left there at all but one word.

"_Ana_," he doesn't say, hasn't said once since waking up alone again.


End file.
